


if i'm getting everything i've ever wanted (please let it be you)

by Pandemic



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Angst with a Happy Ending, DADT Repeal, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Tony Stark Feels, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, oh tony my sweet summer child
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-18
Updated: 2019-12-18
Packaged: 2021-02-17 23:01:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21851098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pandemic/pseuds/Pandemic
Summary: He’s answered very quickly when Steve drops to one knee. Quite literally drops, knee smacking against the concrete floor loud enough to echo in the now silent room. Tony thinks he hears Bruce gasp somewhere like some Victorian heroine, and he’d spare a moment to roll his eyes at his reaction but he’s too busy trying to breathe around his heart that is now lodged in his throat.“Steve?” His voice is high, tilting up on a question.
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Comments: 13
Kudos: 285





	if i'm getting everything i've ever wanted (please let it be you)

It’s a miserably cold day in Boston. The rain pulls off Charles River in horizontal sheets that soak everything through the instant it makes contact. The cold is lazy today, Jarvis would like to tell Tony, the kind that cannot be bothered going around you and instead seeps through your bones instead. There is nothing that is memorable about this day, it shakes out much the same as any other. He wakes late, exhales stale breath made worse by the triple shot of espresso he inhales, and starts his morning routine, runs a toothpaste over his teeth and brush a hand through his hair as though that alone will tame it.

There is nothing memorable about this day. _And yet._

He pulls one of Steve’s jumpers over his head. It’s far too large on him, he rolls the sleeves up in a well practiced move. The neck, stretched over time and well-thumbed use, slips to bare his shoulder every so often. He pushes it up every time it falls, and doesn’t think he imagines the faint smell of earth and fresh air and _Steve_ that greets him every time he does. It could be his wishful imagination, but he likes to think different. He wraps a scarf round once, twice, and finishes the look with a MIT beanie. It’s a particular brand of “hobo chic”, as Bruce likes to say, that suits Tony like a second skin. He’ll have to take it all off when he reaches the labs, because even he isn’t stupid enough to risk the wrath of his supervisors if he causes another fire this month on the premises. But he’ll hang Steve’s jumper up as close to him as he dares, make enough excuses to walk near and let the scent of Steve ground him in its wake.

He looks round at his room, his eyes scanning a quick check. He doesn’t know why he bothers, it’s still as much of a mess as it was yesterday. The shock of blue carpet flooring can only be sighted in and amongst clothes and papers that litter the floor. His bed has taken on the form of a nest, covers undisturbed from where he snatched a few hours of sleep last night, blankets curled round him like a cloak. He doesn’t need to check his room, but it gives him the chance and routine to stroke his fingers across the photo of him and Steve that sits on the windowsill, the only item that’s regularly dusted. It’s of them, a quick photo that Peter had snapped at Boston Common, and the resolution of his phone camera doesn’t particularly stand up to being blown up to a print. The quality is a little fuzzy, but sharp enough to show off Steve’s cheekbones, and that’s enough for Tony. Tony’s in Steve’s space, standing in the eaves of Steve’s large shoulders with an obscenely wide smile, mouth open like he’s in the middle of a joke. Steve’s curled into Tony’s gravity field, eyes on Tony and nothing else. It’s not a particularly special memory or special moment, but it’s one Tony adores, one Tony had begged Peter to send him. 

“Miss you babe.” He says out loud to nothing, and heads to the labs quick and sure.

The next hours are spent in a frenzy of math and exploration that makes him dizzy in the best possible way. Bruce is over his shoulder for some of it, spurring him on. Reed interjects every so often, but his involvement normally causes Tony to throw a spanner in his general direction. The hours bleed into one another, the morning dripping into the afternoon with the slow and steady tick of time.

There is nothing memorable about this day, it falls out like any other. Yet again, it’s well past any semblance of a normal time to stop and take a break before Tony even takes a breath. 

He’s just starting to think his stomach is about to rebel and expel itself from his system in protest, when the lab door thunders open, startlingly loud into the quiet of tinkering and metal on metal. His supervisor, Hank, looks up ready to shout at the offender, rendered mute by what greets him.

Tony looks up at the disturbance, and stops breathing.

“Hi honey.” It’s Steve, in all his gorgeous glory, in his pressed officer’s uniform, hat perched across crisp blond hair. He’s dangerously attractive like this, the kind that could ruin Tony, bring him to his knees if he so much as asks. Good thing Steve never would, hair light up by the exit light behind him, giving him an orange godly glow that makes even the non-believer in Tony want to drop to his knees and pray.

“What are you doing here?” Tony asks when he remembers how oxygen works, remembers how words feel on his tongue. It’s not a harsh question. He thought Steve was on assignment, he’d spoken to him on a satellite phone mere days ago, signal patchy and only catching one in every three words as Saharan wind swallowed the rest. It was an awful, shitty routine once a week that served as nothing more than a chance to reaffirm their love for one another. Tony wouldn’t trade it for anything, schedule always completely shut off for an hour before and an hour after the time he got to steal from Steve’s other love, freedom.

“I... that is. I got personal leave.” Steve’s voice is trembling like a leaf, words threadbare and soft. It’s so unlike the normally stalwart and unshakeable foundations of his Steve that Tony feels panic in his lungs. _Personal leave_. That tends to lead to a road framed by death and heartache, a road full of last minute leave out of pity, of funerals or hospitals. The terror that claws at his throat must show in his eyes, cause Steve presses into his field of vision, into his space. “Oh no darling, I’m sorry. It’s not bad. At least, I hope it’s not bad. It’s good, it’s so wonderfully good. Tony, you, to me, you. You are _perfect._ And, well, it got repealed. And I couldn’t wait.”

Tony can’t follow Steve’s train of thought, can’t put it back on the tracks of his mind. The terror he’d felt moments ago is gone, replaced by fond confusion. He’s never seen Steve this incapable of speech. Steve loves talking, loves critical thought and heated debate. Tony will poke him with caustic words about democracy, just to watch Steve splutter and wind up and _go._ He’ll frame well thought out, perfectly structured and passionate chains of language without a second thought. Tony considers it a phenomenally attractive part of him, thinks it like foreplay at times (which, judging by the disbelieving and disgusted looks Pepper occasionally shot him in the middle of a Steve diatribe, Tony hanging off his every word, he thought he might be less subtle than he thought). 

“What got repealed?” Tony asks, still in a state of shock at Steve’s sudden appearance, at his state of disarray.

He’s answered very quickly when Steve drops to one knee. Quite literally _drops_ , knee smacking against the concrete floor loud enough to echo in the now silent room. Tony thinks he hears Bruce gasp somewhere like some Victorian heroine, and he’d spare a moment to roll his eyes at his reaction but he’s too busy trying to breathe around his heart now lodged in his throat.

“Steve?” His voice is high, tilting up on a question. 

“I’m sorry. I was going to wait and surprise you when you got back to your dorm but I couldn’t wait. Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. It was repealed. And I couldn’t. I couldn’t wait. Tony, you are everything. You accepted being my other half even when half of being that included being hidden from view.” Steve stops a second, swallows, reaches into his pocket, and brings out a small box that Tony zeroes in on with a focus he’s never felt, “You keep me going, when, when I can’t breathe past the sand in my lungs and heat in the air. You are on my mind always, and I want - I want - I want. I want you to be mine, want you to call me yours. I want to shout it, want to hire a plane and put it in skywriting, want to make you happy, want to have a sickeningly domestic life that makes Sam and Bucky sick. I want everything, but only if you come with it. So.” He opens the box, and Tony stares with watering eyes onto a titanium band that gleams against the harsh lighting above, “Tony, will you marry me?”

Tony’s vaguely aware, somewhere in his subconscious, that this is the part he’s supposed to say something, but he’s for once absolutely silent. The words won’t form against his lips, mouth betraying him at the one time he wished it wouldn’t. He’s suddenly overwhelmingly conscious that he stands before the gorgeously put together Steve in a well worn T-shirt, jeans with more holes than is necessary, and hair long past needing a shower. Insecurities, ones he’d long thought he’d put to bed, rear their head with barbed wire laughter and ugly disbelief. Even now with the gorgeous words Steve had just uttered, with the ring still beckoning, it doesn’t compute. He’d known, of course he’d known, that Steve loved him. It was one of those irrefutable truths. The sky is blue. Don’t drink coffee from the communal student lounge. Don’t trust Bucky on days that end with a y. Tony loves Steve. Steve loves Tony. He’d just always assumed that the love Steve felt was enough to be with him and no more. An ugly thought that Steve liked the excuse DADT had granted him, had liked the anonymity of his choice it had afforded him, had even burrowed against skin and taken root.

He’s not really aware of how the small class of students around him are still silent, of how Steve‘s face, at once joyful, has gone more and more solemn as the quiet has stretched. He’s red faced now, flush with embarrassment, moving to pull the ring box closed and back in his pocket.

“I’m sorry,” he stutters, “I should have stopped and thought for a minute. I’ll leave you to it, maybe hole up with Bucky for tonight just to lick my wounds.” He tries for humour, missing it by miserable miles and Tony’s rushing forward before he can think.

“Steve, oh my god. Steve.” Tony’s flung himself into Steve’s open arms now, “Yes. Of course the answer’s yes.” He finishes this affirmation with a kiss, desperate and greedy and completely unashamed that he’s in the middle of labs and the supervisor who will mark his module is watching it all. He licks into Steve’s mouth with a groan, tastes the tears running down his face against his mouth, each man’s teeth hitting against the others because they can’t stop smiling.

Steve pulls back, eyes watery and impossibly fond, “Truly?” he says, quiet and just for them. Tony can hear clapping and shocked laughter from behind him, but he doesn’t care, his eyes and arms are full with the man he loves. The man he gets to love forever, loudly and proudly for all to see.

“Truly, madly, deeply, baby.” He jokes, reaching for the velvet box with grabby hands, “now give me my ring, I want it.”

And if the laugh Steve barks out sounds a bit wet, broken and glorious, it’s between him and Tony’s lab group.

**Author's Note:**

> I play a bit fast and loose with how easy it is to get personal leave in the military, the DADT repeal, and MIT. I know very little about all three things, so if anything is seriously annoying you, please drop a (kind) note in the comments and I'll do my best to rework it.
> 
> Find me on [tumblr](https://eachxnn.tumblr.com/)


End file.
